As the 2022 midterm elections approach, scrutiny of the 2020 elections continues to raise questions about their integrity, including a recently identified anomaly in Maricopa County, Arizona.
By Arizona law, to be considered valid, ballots must be received by the county no later than 7 p.m. on Election Day.
But newly discovered documents from the 2020 election in Maricopa County show that more than 20,000 ballots were transported through the US Postal Service a day after the poll. Yet Maricopa County has only discarded 934 overdue ballots according to its document titled ” Early Voting Rejection Summary ».
This means that more than 19,000 late and invalid ballots should have been rejected. This figure is important because it is enough to tilt the results of the presidential election in Arizona, which resulted in the victory of Joe Biden in the state with 10,457 votes more than Donald Trump.
It is impossible to know if the results would have been different had late ballots not been counted in Maricopa County.
Le « Early Voting Rejection Summary » is only one of the documents which relates the facts. The county documents were obtained by Verity Vote, a citizens’ collective with some experience studying data and surveys. The group conducted research on the results of the 2020 elections across the country.
Verity Vote recently released its rapport following this investigation.
How ballots circulate
To understand the anomaly, it’s important to know how ballots circulate in Maricopa County, which provides early voting ballot boxes as well as early mail-in voting.
A truck driven by an employee of the Maricopa County Elections Department picks up ballots at least once a day.
The collection truck departs from the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, a site specially dedicated to collecting advance votes. There’s enough room in the truck to accommodate more ballots, but it’s already loaded with advance votes made in person or advance votes made remotely.
It is at the post office that the truck collects the advance votes made remotely, then the driver goes to the Runbeck electoral service where all the ballots are scanned once deposited.
It is there, at the time of the scan, that a “Incoming Delivery Receipt”. This delivery receipt shows the date, time and name of the employees delivering and receiving the ballots, and it details the number of ballots from the post office, drop boxes and in-person early voting.
In response to certain document requests, Maricopa County has made delivery receipt documents available to the public for dates ranging from October 13 through November 6, 2020.
In this set of documents, Verity Vote noticed that the documents from November 4, 2020, the day after the election, were missing. Verity Vote asked Maricopa County to provide them with that day’s delivery receipt, first through a few phone calls and then through written requests. This request should have been simple, since all the other dates were already public. But that request was made to a county attorney.
“After numerous delays, multiple follow-up emails and phone calls, county employees informed Verity Vote that the records were in the hands of legal counsel pending review”says the report. “It took almost seven months to get the documents. »
The November 4 delivery receipt indicates that 18,000 ballots were removed from the post office the day after the November 3 election.
The form has three colors of ink. A Runbeck election services employee printed his only first name, Brandon, in blue. The ballots arrived at « 9 h 30 » le « 4-11-20 » and the paper is signed in the same blue ink by the addressee, but the signature is illegible.
A line titled « retards » should indicate how many ballots are overdue. The four columns of the delay line have numbers in blue ink, but they are scribbled and illegible.
Another signature, scribbled in red ink, is also illegible. It designates the person who delivered the ballot papers.
Even though the document is dated November 4, a day after the election, at the top of the page, above the margin, someone wrote “Election Day” in black ink with handwriting that appears to be different from the rest of the page.
The county also says it received 1,000 ballots on Nov. 5 and 1,500 ballots on Nov. 6. If we add the 18,000 ballots found on November 4, the total number of documented late ballots rises to 20,500.
A letter from County Clerk Stephen Richer responding to Verity Vote’s request for records says the Nov. 4 receipt provided by the county is not the only ballot receipt that has reached the county that day. the.
“This document does not represent all of the Maricopa County receipting forms from November 4, 2020. We cannot be certain, but we believe the remainder of these forms have been transferred to the Treasurer’s Office for storage. and sealed with the ballot papers”, wrote Mr. Richer. If so, this indicates that there are more ballots mailed in that were not counted in the “Early Voting Rejection Summary”.
Another anomaly is the number of ballots collected on November 4, compared to the previous and following days.
Voters had been instructed to mail their ballots by October 27 to ensure they arrived on time. On October 30, the number of ballots sent by post fell sharply, before rising sharply the day after the election.
On October 28, the county received 58,500 mail-in ballots, then:
– October 29: 14,500;
– October 30: 10,500;
– October 31: 6000;
– 1st November: 1500;
– 2 nov. : 1000 ;
– November 3: 2500 – Election Day. To be counted and valid, the ballot must be received by the county no later than 7 p.m.;
– November 4: 18,000 late and invalid ballots;
– November 5: 1,000 late and invalid ballots;
– November 6: 1,500 late and invalid ballots.
Yet Maricopa County only rejected 934 late ballots.
Maricopa County responded to request for comment fromEpoch Times by an e-mail assuring that the director of communication of the electoral service “would make contact”. Epoch Times will not fail to report his explanations.
Arizona has 11 electors. In the final tally, Biden won 74 more electoral votes than Trump, according to the official National Archives record.
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